THE weeks of the teachers' conferences is an appropriate moment to reflect on our education system and the role that teachers have played in it. For, the striking imbalance between the small scale of resources per student in the Irish educational system and the quality of those who emerge from it suggests that the quality of teaching in our schools must be high bye international standards.
In 1994, the last year in respect of which international comparisons are available, the proportion of our population aged 5-14 (the primary school age cohort) was half as large again as in the rest of the EU, and that of the 15-24 age group was one-quarter higher than in the remainder of the Union. At the same time the purchasing power of our GNP per head was 22 per cent below that of our partners. (Half of this gap has since been bridged as a result of our much faster economic growth during the past three years.)
So, in order to provide the same volume of public resources per student as in the rest of the EU in 1994, we would have needed to devote to this purpose a share of our national resources some three quarters larger than in the case of our partners.
In fact, we did allocate more of our resources to education than the rest of the EU, but only one-fifth more, i.e. 6 per cent of our GNP as against 5 per cent elsewhere according to OECD figures. That meant that in relation to the size of the educational age group the volume of public spending here in 1994 was about one-third lower than in the rest of the EU.
How have we managed to produce such high-quality school leavers with such limited public resources? It is clear that this had not been done by educating a lower proportion of our young people. The OECD figures show that the proportion of students remaining in the educational system up to age 18 is as high as, or perhaps even higher than, in the rest of the EU - and very much higher than in Britain.
The under-funding of our education system is mainly reflected in the high average numbers of students per teaching staff member - higher in Ireland than anywhere else in the European Union - by two-fifths in the case of the primary sector and by over one-quarter in the case of second-level education.
Moreover - although no statistical data are available on this point - it seems clear that the facilities available in many schools here (both equipment and sports facilities) are markedly inferior to those that schools elsewhere enjoy, including schools in Northern Ireland.
It is clear that in terms of the relationship between the resources we devote to education and the return we secure, despite very large classes, in the form of well-qualified students, the Irish education system is uniquely productive. Why is this so?
The answer can lie only in some combination of the educational motivation of Irish parents, students and teachers. Given the scale of the educational productivity differential between Ireland and other countries, one must suspect that all three factors are at work.
IN the case of parents and students it seems likely that high educational motivation is due to the scale of past emigration, which until the 1960s left barely half of each age cohort alive in Ireland at age 30.
The highly competitive domestic employment situation of that period, together with the importance of equipping for something more than labouring work those who would fail to get a job at home, seem to have led to an extraordinary emphasis being placed by parents - especially in poorer rural areas - on the importance of securing a good education for their children. And the children in turn seem to have become equally strongly motivated.
The effects of this are to be seen in the fact that a phenomenal proportion - four out of every five of Irish school-leavers apply for higher education places. As a result, even five years ago the number of higher education places per 1,000 population had already been pushed up to a level one-quarter higher than in the rest of the EU - and well over half as high again as in Britain.
And the rapid expansion of this sector in the past five years has almost certainly increased further this disproportion between higher education places here and elsewhere.
But the whole of the explanation for the exceptional productivity of the Irish education system cannot lie with high parental and student motivation: it is clear that, compared to elsewhere, our teachers are also strongly motivated. In Ireland one simply does not hear the kind of criticism of the quality of education and of teaching that is common in some other countries - most notably in England and the United States, but also in some continental countries such as Italy.
Now, teachers are not likely to be strongly motivated if they are badly-paid - especially as low pay is often seen as reflecting low status in the community. It is possible to measure this factor, by relating teachers' pay to average per-capita output in each EU country. Using national GDP figures, adjusted to make them comparable in terms of purchasing power, this exercise has in fact been carried out by the OECD in - Table P35 of their latest Education At A Glance publication.
NOW because, uniquely, one-eighth of Irish GDP consists of net outflows of multinational profits and interest payments, GNP figures which exclude such outflows provide a more accurate assessment of relative resources available in Ireland and elsewhere.
From such a comparison it emerges that in relation to GNP per head, Irish teachers in 1994 were better paid than the EU average - by as much as 45 per cent. Indeed, only in Germany did the purchasing power of teachers' salaries in 1994 exceed the Irish figures. (The figures I have used for this comparison are a simple average of three figures: starting salaries, salaries after 15 years employment, and salaries at the top of the scale).
This result has, of course, been achieved through the tough negotiating tactics of the powerful teachers' unions - but their task has been eased by the high standing of teachers in Irish society and by the consequent strength of support for teachers amongst the general public.
Teacher union tactics have, of course, posed real problems for governments - as I recall from my own time as Taoiseach. Moreover, some of their demands may not always be conducive to higher-quality education: for example their current resistance to a shift from promotion on a basis of seniority to one of promotion on merit.
In terms of social policy, teacher union pressure to allocate additional staff so as to improve the staff/student ratio nationally, instead of concentrating additional resources on schools in disadvantaged areas, has been unhelpful. And there may also be criticism of their resistance to proposals for changes in the inspection system, for arrangements to guarantee supervision of classes in the absence of a teacher, and for a right of appeal for senior students against decisions that could materially affect their education.
All this may be true. And a case can also certainly be made for an improvement in the balance between teachers' salaries (85 per cent of current expenditure) and spending on educational facilities (15 per cent). But, that said, it is certainly better that there should be well-paid, strongly-motivated teachers than under-paid and disgruntled ones, as seems to be the case in England, for example. {CORRECTION} 97032500042